


Babysteps onto a Rebuilt Bridge

by mayachain



Series: Bridges-Verse [5]
Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: College, Future Fic, Introspection, M/M, the so-called cure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:12:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The needle is about half the size of St John's favorite green pen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babysteps onto a Rebuilt Bridge

Stacked at the very back of Bobby's fridge, behind the beer and the cheese and the fudge for the ice cream, there is a tiny, nasty-looking syringe. St John has never commented on its presence in the small flat that has become his home, has never demanded it be thrown out. He knows why it's there, knows that it's not meant for him.

Getting rid of his powers is not something he's ever wasted a thought on before. Even in the beginning, when an inexplicable current of heat had surged through his body and something had exploded one of his mother's tea lights, the possibility of putting a stop to it forever had never been in his thoughts. The new developments within his body, such a far cry from whatever normal puberty weirdness everyone around him had been expecting, had been as scary as they had been exciting. Maybe it had been because of the fearless support of the first person he told, but to little St John Allerdyce, there had been no traumatic adjustments. Even when the fire had proved horrifically deadly to that very same person, it never seemed unnatural to him.

During the roughly eight years since, he has discovered what might be the limits to his powers while all the time finding new ways to surpass them. He has seen the same thing in others, too, seen them unleash it all, reach the next stage towards full potential, and terrible as some of it has been, all of it has been beautiful.

There are repercussions, of course, as there always are when one is handed great gifts by whoever is in charge of these things. Other than wishing (raging, crying, bitterly praying for a chance to turn back time) for better control when he was eleven years old, he has never once regretted becoming something better than human.

The fire is a part of him, defines him in a way he could never put into words. He never thought he could have a nightmare worse than the match exploding in his step-sister's face, but the sheer thought of being deprived of it, at feeling the sting of the needle and everything that makes him Pyro just go, ceasing to be, has terrified him nightly since he watched it happen to Mystique. He still wakes Bobby up jerking out of sleep with Magneto's hollow voice in his head, You have no idea what suffering is, boy, no idea.

It's true, he has no idea, and he never thought he might want to. Still, every mutant St John socializes with these days has gone without. To Mystique, the experience was violent, filled with humiliation and betrayal from which even now he's not even sure she will ever recover. The Leech kid is the very embodiment of it; the college students that are fast becoming his friends have all done it voluntarily, even if sometimes persuaded by their parents . All in all, it was a worthwhile experiment, Bobby had said, even after confessing that the one week he'd spent without the ice that defines him had driven him crazy. While St John hadn't understood, then, what had motivated Bobby to do it, he got that it'd gained Bobby some weird kind of insight.

The 24/7 all know what it's like to not have access to their innate powers, to deliberately live without them and then, with that knowledge, to choose their powers and all that comes with them. St John is not used to be an outsider to those who have gone through a bad experience, to those who know what they're talking about.

The second time Bobby caught him eying the syringe, he made it clear that trying the vaccine is not a requirement. The others would never dare to, wouldn't even dream of pressuring him. But. The fact remains that they've all done it, which makes it some kind of weird initiation ritual.

St John has never cared about jumping through the hoops to join a group before. But every time he grabs for the beer or the cheese or the fudge, he gets a feeling just below his ribs that this insight might be something he wants to write about in his church store notebook.

* * *


End file.
